Swing Catalyst Support Center

Minimum camera distances

Minimum camera distances

In order to get the entire golf swing inside the video image, you need to cover a vertical distance of about 3.1 meters / 10 ft.

Use this look up table to estimate what minimum distance you need between the lens and golfer. For a zoom lens of 3.8-11mm focal length, fully zoomed out would correspond to 3.8 mm.

Image sensor

Lens focal length

3.5 mm

3.8 mm

4.0 mm

4.4 mm

6 mm

8 mm

1/1.2" [21 mm]

2 m

1/1.8" [14 mm]

2 m

1/2" [13 mm]

1.7 m

2 m

4 m

1/3" [9 mm]

2.7 m

3 m

5.2 m

There are wide and fisheye lenses that can bring you even closer than this, but the bending and distortion of the image makes it inappropriate for golf analysis where angles of club, body and arms are evaluated.